No terror arrests in 10,000 police stop-and-searches

A really interesting article in today's Guardian about the total pointlessness of the Section 44 stop-and-search tactics the police have employed against all manner of innocent people in the last few years – including many, many hapless photographers. Even the Government's own man, David Davis, is calling this what it is: lunacy.

More than 100,000 people were stopped and searched by police under counter-terrorism powers last year but none of them were arrested for terrorism-related offences, according to Home Office figures published today.

The statistics show that 504 people out of the 101,248 searches were arrested for any offence – an arrest rate of 0.5%, compared with an average 10% arrest rate for street searches under normal police powers.

The figures prompted the former Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis to call for the controversial policy to be scrapped.

"This astonishing fact of no terrorism-related arrests, let alone prosecutions or convictions, in over 100,000 stop and searches, demonstrates what a massively counter-productive policy this is," said Davis.

Hopefully statistics such as this, together with Home Secretary Theresa May curtailing the police's Section 44 powers, mean that we photographers will be free to move about – and photograph in public spaces – without fear of pointless police harassment.